Posted
by
samzenpus
on Friday June 12, 2009 @02:39PM
from the a-grounding-doesn't-seem-that-bad-now dept.

eldavojohn writes "Winning the lottery requires incredible luck and one in a million odds. So does getting hit by a falling space rock. A 14-year-old German boy was granted a three-inch scar by the gods. A pea-sized meteorite smote young Gerrit Blank's hand before leaving a foot-sized crater on the road. The boy's account: 'At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road.' Curiously, the rock was magnetic, and tests were done to verify it is extraterrestrial. The Telegraph notes the only other recorded event of a meteorite striking a person was 'in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.' Space.com lists a few more anomalies and we discussed the probability of these things downing aircraft recently."

I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang

Yeah right. Pain signals travel through nerves at less than 10 feet per second and it takes much, much longer for the brain to recognize something's wrong. But you hear something almost instantaneously.

I'm not saying I don't believe it (I'm not sure), but another point for thought is that it should have reached terminal velocity, right? I don't think a pea-sized rock falls fast enough to leave a crater the size of a foot and cause a loud bang.

On the other hand, I don't blame him for an inaccurate accounting of events--most of what we "remember" is actually reconstructions from logic.

It wasn't pea-sized the whole way down. It was probably quite a bit bigger than that initially (it would have to be to make it all the way to the surface). That's just the size it had been burned down to by the time it reached ground. It must have been moving pretty damn fast.

The faster the initial velocity, the greater the friction and therefore the greater the temperature in the upper atmosphere and therefore the greater the burn-off.

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I think at hypersonic velocities in the atmosphere the asteroid would be heated more by ram pressure than by friction. Another variable to take into account would be how closely the body is to an ideal black body - the closer it is the more of the radiant energy incident on its surface that will be re-radiated away. This is why the leading edges of the Space Shuttle are black: there's no way those surfaces could withstand the temperatures produced by re-entry without a major

He's likely misremembering what happened. Car crash witnesses do it all the time. He's just (unconsciously) assembling the information he has into something that meshes with his expectations and with what he knows happened after the event happened. He was likely blown back by the force of the meteorite's impact with the Earth, not it hitting him, and as you very correctly mention it was too fast for him to perceive of pain then the sound.

Clearly he is some sort of Cylon or Terminator as the magnetic rock was attracted to him...

Curiously it his his hand, which means either Luke Skywalker or a certain state alchemist...

So I am a bit torn as to if we should mob him or not. Better burn him just to be sure. Probably a witch anyway.

Also if he was like Magneto, he would probably make the meteor not hit him I would guess. Which would make him sort sort of Anti-Magneto, his arch nemesis. Which ironically are quite common and Magneto doesn't really like them either. Unless you are in a alternative universe, in which case the opposite would be true.

This reminds me of an arguement I had with a co-worker about extra-terrestrial life a few years back.Him: Do you know how much stuff would have to be just right for that to happen? It'd be like hitting the lottery.Me: People hit the lottery every week.
Checkmate.

Considerably less than that. There have been no reported hits since the '50s. There were fewer people back then, but still more than a billion. So the per year chance of being hit by a meteorite must be more like 1 in a few hundred billion.

I am not a statistician, but isn't it a little more difficult than simply counting the current population size and dividing that by the total number of occurrences? I mean, shouldn't we also factor in everyone who lived between 1954 and now (for the sake of argument, lets say time began with the first strike), and also somehow factor in time since many of those people may be dead today and thus should not count as being hit by a space object?

You can't count with population of 6 billion. About 1.3 of that live in India. Have you ever been to the country's poor areas (=which is nearly all of it). I've only traveled once through the country and most of that time in a train but I feel confident to say that if someone gets hit by a small meteor there, it won't get reported and confirmed.

Same is true for chine which also has over a billion people. And the poor parts of Africa... And I would guess that the same stands even for a lot of South America a

Scanning through the comments I don't see a single one along those lines, but I do see a ton of them about the kid having superpowers now. Now that's Slashdot:) Or maybe everyone was just too busy jerkin' it to be bothered to make comments.

That's why we need a team of people to watch him for several months to determine his weaknesses. Obviously we need to find the best and the brightest and should look to the comic book shops for recruitment.

No photos of any wound, but fast enough to bury in the ground or leave a foot long mark on the ground? Loud noise? Many small meteors are traveling quite slowly by time they reach the surface. Small meteorites are quite easy to obtain. Apparently this [sky.com] is a photo of the rock. Is that the 3-inch scar? Just dunno...

If it was fast enough to leave an impact crater after hitting the ground, it would have shredded that kid's hand. I think it is more likely that the meteor hit the ground and the kid was hit with the stones and dirt that were tossed into the air.

FTA: "A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground."

First, meteors aren't hot. Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug. Was the kid's hand blown off? No? Then it didn't leave a fucking crater in the ground either. How about some photographs? Oh, there are none? Hmmm.

First, meteors aren't hot. Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug. Was the kid's hand blown off? No? Then it didn't leave a fucking crater in the ground either. How about some photographs? Oh, there are none? Hmmm.

The only way I can read this is that "foot wide crater" must mean something more like "hit a pile of dust and pebbl

Did you really just say meteors aren't hot? They burn up in our atmosphere how wouldn't they be hot. Heat is cause when anything enters the atmosphere at high speeds it is the same reason that all space crafts have special heat resistant tiles on their underbodies for when they reenter the atmosphere.

Yes it is true that some burn off all of the layers and become in covered in ice, but some don't. Meteors have been found both still hot and covered in ice. and I hit submit when I went to hit edit, which is why I'm responding to myself.

Second, if a "pea-sized piece of rock" is going fast enough to make "a foot wide crater in the ground," it's not going to be "bouncing off" shit, least of all this kid's hand. It would tear through him like a shotgun slug.

I responded to this question on dig and I have simple answer because the same thing happens with full metal jackets ammunition on soft targets.

First the idea that bullets or any objects that pierce flesh will cause blow back is false [intuitor.com].

Interesting but I don't think it applies. How big of a gun with what kind of ammo would you need to blow a foot-wide hole in a road? Most typical rounds would just bury, or bounce. Though I think the real problem here is just the article's lack of any kind of logic.

It's pretty easy to invert the order when you're trying to remember events which were approximately only milliseconds apart. Especially so when you weren't expecting them to happen in the first place and so weren't paying close attention to the order.

If something the size of a pea falling from space could leave a foot sized crater, then building would have a tough time of it becasue we are bombarded with things this size hitting the ground all the time.

Another example, shoot a bullet straight up* and when it falls and hits the ground it will be traveling about as fast as a meteorite.Hell shot a bullet into the ground and you

The article states that "14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite", which sounds like he would have been hit by it with this velocity. Now if he would have been, then he and his near surrounding would be dust. It's true, that meteorites get this speeds when they enter atmosphere, but in the final phase before impact they are slowed down to only a few mph because of the air resistance.Only really huge fucking cataclysmic asteroids reach ground with devastating speeds (the much bigger ones that create la

I was in some icy place like the arctic or something, looking at the Aurora Borealis, which was beautiful, and then i saw one point get really bright and then in an instant i realized it was a meteorite and it was coming right for me. It landed about 5 feet from me and I had only enough time to be incredibly frightened and then try to turn to run, but it hit before i could even turn, and then rather than just ending, the dream sort of froze, and I had t

For everyone who can't see it because the image was cropped, I can confirm that the scar is indeed shaped exactly like a lightning bolt. In line with the prophecy from 1979 that states that "the boy who lived" with "lightning in his hand" may one day confront and defeat the terrifying Asteroid menace, I believe we have finally found our champion, the one who finally end the Asteroid threat to all of Earth once and for all. But we'll have to work hard to keep more Asteroids from hitting him in the meantime... are we up to it? I believe so. It is - he is... perhaps our greatest hope.

I was kind of curious on the choice of the word Smote in the title as well.

Smote: past of smite

1: to strike sharply or heavily especially with the hand or an implement held in the hand2 a: to kill or severely injure by smiting
b: to attack or afflict suddenly and injuriously3: to cause to strike4: to affect as if by striking [children smitten with the fear of hell â" V. L. Parrington]5: captivate, take [smitten with her beauty]

intransitive verb: to deliver or deal a blow with or as if with the hand or something held

The title would have me believe that this meteorite was hurled by someone or someone smacked the kid with this meteorite by holding it in their hand.

By using smitten, the kid would be awe struck, or wondrous toward the meteorite but not necessarily physically hit by it.

Pea-sized? That's about 9mm or even larger depending upon the cultivar. I've seen peas the size of.50 caliber rounds (about 12.7mm) and at the 30,000mph in TFAHL that would not only rip the boy's hand off but probably break the bones up to his elbow from the shock. Even at 400mph it would do way more than that. Also, to be pea-sized and make a crater that large, it would have to have more mass than it should have since it's supposedly composed of primarily ferrous material.

And I doubt 30,000MPH. Maybe 250 at best.

But this *IS* the Telegraph. Not exactly a reliable source of news. I'm surprised this actually made it here.

So let me get this straight: a meteor strikes a boy's hand, bounces off, and then impacts the ground with enough force to make a 1 ft crater in the ground, and a noise loud enough to leave his ears ringing for hours.

Somehow, I think any object with enough kinetic energy to do that kind of damage to the road would have completely obliterated a soft, fleshy hand, or at least blown clear through it. But just leaving a 3 inch scar and bouncing off, yet packing enough force to knock him to the ground? No way. Not unless this kid is Iron Man.

Well, and I don't know where the details in TFA here posted came from. Actually, the german article states some facts differently (I'll try a translation, umlauts were replaced by me, because/. sucks at Unicode):

"After I saw the white light, I felt something at my hand. I think, the meteorite streaked me. But maybe it was only the heat." he reported and shows the back of his left hand. A brand around 10 centimeters long is already covered by an eschar. "The sound that followed, sounded like a paver being ripped apart and it was pretty loud", he comemorates and points to a small circle of burst open bitumen by his feet.

So anything hitting the ground will be 1) not glowing (the glowing part is long over) and 2) not hot (in fact, it should be covered in frost).

Well, the "meteorite" was magnetic, which implies either a high iron content or a high nickel content. Either one is shiny. Surely the sun reflecting off the "meteorite" could explain the "streak of light".

Seriousoy, though... can you please do the calculation that proves for a meteor of some diameter N, and some density M, it is impossible for the meteor to enter the atmosphere at some speed O, at an angle P, that would result in the meteorite not being cool to the touch at elevation Q? Please account for atmospheric and local weather conditions. Or, you could link to a source with the required info.

See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).

See, here's the thing... most meteors enter the atmosphere obliquely, which results in a long path of travel before touchdown (if they don't burn up completely). But just assume that it's possible for a meteor to not hit obliquiely (and factoring in rotation, etc)... surely it is possible for a meteor of sufficient density and size to be traveling at higher than terminal velocity, and above normal temperature, when it hits the surface (or a teen standing on the surface).

How the [File System Check] does stupidity of this level get modded up?

As much as I hate replying (twice!) to AC's, I feel compelled to go to the trouble of a Google search.

Meteorite Myths [meteorites.com.au] (cribbed in turn from space.com, apparently)"All of these things together mean that not only is the rock not hot when it hits the ground, it can actually be very cold. Some meteorites (what a meteoroid is called after it impacts) have actually been found covered in frost!"

Hot or cold depends on how fast it went, more specifically was it supersonic when it hit or - if not - for how long has it gone slower than sound.

When something goes supersonic it gets worse and worse at transferring heat to the air molecules, which is a big problem for supersonic craft such as the SR-71 Blackbird - one reason is black is to maximize heat transfer by radiation.

Meteorites which are ice cold when they hit were slowed down below ~330m/s high in the atmosphere and thus cooled down, the ho